1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a health care system for performing health care of test subjects.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, together with the aging of the nation or with increasing prices of medical techniques, national, the national medical expenses have been increasing more and more and year by year, coming up to the issue of cracking of the health insurance society. Against such a background, it is said that there is a need for restructuring the system from the conventional medical care centered on the symptomatic treatment to another centered on preventive care. For this purpose, it is indispensable to achieve techniques for monitoring any changes in health status day by day, or to establish early diagnosis and early treatment techniques for diseases.
Also in recent years, as people have become more and more desirous of health, there have been developed body fluid tests concerned with urine, blood, and the like as a means for acquiring personal health status with accuracy. Those tests, particularly in analyses with the specimen of blood (or serum, blood plasma, etc.), make it possible to obtain a large number of bio-parameters serving as indexes of health status such as glucose concentration, lactic acid concentration, pH value, and oxygen concentration. These parameters can be known from results of blood tests at medical examinations executed by companies, schools, municipalities, or the like, or from results of blood tests at blood donation.
However, those blood tests at medical examinations or blood donations can only be known once several months or once a year or so, and thus cannot be indexes that accurately show the physical condition that changes day by day. Further, it is not practical to frequently go to medical facilities to take a blood test and get proper advice from a doctor based on acquired parameters, from a viewpoint that time and economical constraints are taken into consideration.
For these and other issues, unexamined Japanese patent publication No. 2001-258868 describes a blood analysis method and apparatus that allows a blood test to be easily carried out in the home without receiving any special training. According to this, it is taught that parameters called health markers, such as pH or oxygen concentration in blood can be monitored by daily and easily executing a blood test at home.
However, even if a person having no expertise has found the parameters, it is quite difficult for the person to connect those with a health improvement, with the result that the person would eventually ask doctors or other qualified persons for advice.
Also, unexamined Japanese patent publication No. 2001-275996 describes a health care system that the doctor transmits advice to a subject person based on biological information obtained from measurements made by the subject person at home. According to this, it becomes possible for the subject person to opportunely obtain advice useful for the person's own health care from an expert without directly visiting the medical facilities.
However, even though useful advice has been obtained, a necessity of administration of pharmaceuticals, if included in the advice, would eventually involve moving to the medical facilities or pharmacy. Thus, it can occur that the opportune advice, fortunately obtained as it has, becomes no use.
In view of the circumstances as described above, an object of the present invention is to provide a health care system and a health care method which allow a person to receive proper medical services at proper timing. More specifically, the system and method make it easily achievable for the person to maintain a good health status and prevent various diseases by receiving opportune health advice or administration of pharmaceuticals while keeping his/her own life pattern.